Imagine that you are a movie director and Brad Pitt leaves your project. You are without a leading man for the movie and you are supposed to begin filming in a month. Who would you try to woo at the 11^th hour? If you were Kevin Macdonald (“The Last King of Scotland”) the answer would be Russell Crowe!

Shortly before the American Thanksgiving holiday Pitt departed Macdonald’s new film “State of Play” citing problems with the movie’s screenplay that couldn’t be corrected due to Hollywood’s writers strike. With the clock ticking Macdonald quickly made a phone call and hopped on a plane to race off to Australia for a hastily convened meeting with Crowe. It seems to have worked because now Crowe is the new leading man for the film. The “Gladiator” star will play a political consultant working for a major newspaper that stumbles across clues linking a fast-rising politician (Edward Norton) to a murder investigation.

Crowe will begin working on “State of Play” after the New Year. He will need to be done working on that film by March at the latest when he is slated to play the Sheriff of “Nottingham”.

“Gladiator” director Ridley Scott and his Oscar-winning star Russell Crowe will reunite once again in the Universal Pictures movie “Nottingham”. The movie is a dramatic reinterpretation of the legendary story of Robin Hood, the lawless hero of the people who was supposed to have stolen from the rich and given it to the poor while fighting the injustice of Nottingham’s Sheriff. The story has been told many times in movies but in this version the Sheriff of Nottingham (who Crowe will play) is in fact the hero and Robin Hood will be the villain. As written by screenwriters Ethan Reiff and Cyrus Voris, Nottingham’s Sheriff works for a corrupt king and is a lawful man that cares for the citizens. He is also vying for the affections of Maid Marian with Robin Hood which will certainly elevate the stakes that the two men are fighting over.

Scott and Crowe have just finished completing a third picture together called “American Gangster” which will be released this fall. “Nottingham” won’t start filming until sometime in 2008 when the director has finished his next assignment, a thriller to star Leonardo DiCaprio.